I went through the exact same procedure with an Adafruit Metro Mini instead of an Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69HCW, changing the pins accordingly. With the Metro Mini, no RFM69HCW radio module can interfere (although I had disabled it).

AirLift FeatherWing ESP32 firmware shown to be 1.2.2 as before

1. and 2. do work as before3. does not work, with the exact same symptom as above4. does work as before

I have been spending much time for nearly a month now, with many brand new Adafruit parts, but received no constructive feedback regarding the above issue, despite detailed demonstrations as posted above.

I can still not use the Adafruit IO library and any of its examples with the AirLift FeatherWing ESP32, not when used with a Metro or Feather M0 product.

It would be great if someone can look into the matter, also for the benefit of others with the same problem.

While I was posting, I just saw your latest message, much appreciated! I will try that as soon as I can get to it. The Adafruit MQTT library works, so if Adafruit IO library works now/soon, too, the better.

I "only" have to work out how to enable/disable the RFM69HCW and ESP in some kind of well timed loop, as both can't be used together. It'll have to be some kind of ping-pong code on the gateway.